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Wikimedia completes its fundraising campaign

The Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit organisation that supports the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, completed its annual fundraising campaign on New Year's Day. On Monday, the organisation announced that during the last two months it has raised $20 million from more than a million donors in almost every country in the world. In the last three years the number of donors has increased ten-fold and the amount raised is more than four times higher.

In its annual plan for 2011-12, Wikimedia had budgeted for a total expenditure of $28.3 million. The bulk of this is raised in the annual fund-raising campaign, and, in addition to this, Wikimedia is also financed by some institutional benefactors and many other small donations throughout the year. The funds will be spent on hardware, including servers, mobile services, legal defence and general support for the Wikimedia volunteer community.

Among the largest web sites in the world, Wikipedia is alone in being supported not by advertising, but only through donations. The Foundation is based in San Francisco, California and has granted chapters in many countries, including the UK. Each country then raises funds through donations to help fund its local chapter and the Foundation.